


To the End

by cinematicara



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, also i suck at tagging, i have a lot of feelings about him, its the blond peter parker lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-11-12 05:53:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18005096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinematicara/pseuds/cinematicara
Summary: Of course. Peter the photographer. The same Peter who had dropped by every other weekend with his signature photos of Spider-Man, joked around with the interns, and left with a friendly smile and wave. Dominic had only met him once or twice, having worked at the Bugle for less than a month, but he had seemed like such a genuinely nice guy. He’d had this way of making everyone in the room feel at ease.And now he's gone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yeahhhhh, I guess I'm just never gonna get over his death, huh? 
> 
> A few weeks ago, spideryboy on twitter discovered a newspaper clipping from the movie that states that Peter's body was actually dumped in front of the daily bugle and like... that floored me. I'm still so upset about that. So anyways, I've had the idea for this fic for a while, but I just barely got around to writing it because I'm uhhhh procrastinating writing an essay for school. I whipped this up in a couple hours so I'm not _thrilled_ with it exactly, but I hope it's readable?
> 
> Anyways, it's about time someone wrote about Jameson.
> 
> Also, I know some people don't like fics with OCs (me, I am those people), but I promise Dominic is a chill dude, he's just a lowly intern @ the daily bugle, give him some love please lmao

 ***

“Aye, Pierce, shouldn’t you be headed home by now?”

Dominic Pierce glances up from what he’d been typing on his laptop to see one of the nearby journalists staring at him expectantly. He turns his attention down to the analog clock situated neatly between stacks of papers on his desk. _9:57 pm,_ it reads, indicating that the usual time for him to gather his work and go home had long since past.

“Yeah, I’ll head out in a minute,” he confirms. “Just got wrapped up in this project.”

The man that had addressed him chuckles before returning to his work. “Yeah, I hear you. Just don’t keep yourself up too late. Remember, kid, you’re still just an intern.”

The Daily Bugle headquarters where Dominic had been employed as an intern for nearly a month was always relatively quiet this time of night, with most people clocking out between 8 and 9. Dominic usually counts himself among the people to leave early, but as he’d said, today he’d been particularly wrapped up in his work. A lot of interesting assignments find their way to your desk when you happen to be living in the same city as an actual superhero.

“Well,” Dominic yawns, stretching his arms high above his head before bending down to scoop up his laptop and notebook. “You’re right. I guess I’d better head home for the night. ‘Night everyone.”

A couple of closeby people call out quick goodbyes without glancing up from their own work. Nearly everyone else had already gone home, the only stragglers left in the building being a select few that are frantically hurrying to complete their work for the next day’s early deadlines.

Dominic strolls over to the door, plucking his coat from the rack on his way out. The briskness of the wintery air takes him by surprise as he opens the door, and a puff of warm fog escapes his lips as he exhales. He stands still at the top of the staircase as the heavy door swings shut behind him, tilting his chin up towards the star-filled sky, closing his eyes and breathing deeply through his nose. Everything about the city at night, _especially_ during the winter, still seems positively magical to him, despite having lived there his whole life.

Eventually, the moment passes, and Dominic turns his attention back towards the journey home.

He’s just about to descend the first step when something catches his attention.

He freezes, his eyes locking onto the immobile scarlet heap at the bottom of the stairs. A small spark of apprehension alights in his chest, a subtle mixture of curiosity and dread that urges him forward. He steadily begins to descend the staircase, never once taking his eyes off the unmoving form that awaits him at the bottom. The closer he gets, the more intense the feeling in his chest grows.

The figure appears to be lying on its side, partially sprawled against the first stone step, one arm draping limply over it. The rest of the body spills onto the sidewalk in front of the building. Dominic is finally close enough to recognize the bright red and blue spandex suit that covers the body from neck to toe.

Spider-Man.

 _How had Spider-Man gotten here?_ he wonders to himself as he moves down the last few steps. _Is he… unconscious? Injured? Drunk, perhaps?_

He reaches the body, crouching down beside it and carefully turning it to face him. What he sees immediately makes his stomach clench, and he has to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep himself from gagging.

The man’s chest has been effectively crushed, jagged pieces of his broken ribs visibly poking through the suit. The fabric stretches oddly across the heavily damaged portion of his body, leaving a messy tangle of spandex, blood, skin, and bone fragments. The mask that typically covers his face is nowhere to be seen, exposing Spider-Man’s face to Dominic. His pale skin is darkened by dirt and bruises, and a trace of dried blood lingers beneath his nose. His golden hair is disheveled and matted with dirt, and his eyes are still open, blue as a summer sky and wide with expired terror.

It’s strange, there’s a persistent feeling of awareness in the back of Dominic’s mind as if he should recognize the blond corpse. He shakes his head dismissively, fairly certain he had never seen the man’s face before in his life.

Dominic drops out of his crouch to sit on the cold concrete ground, staring in mute horror at the mutilated body in front of him, completely unsure of what to do. Should he call the police? Or Jameson? Maybe both? His hands are trembling as he unlocks his phone, opting for both. _911,_ he taps into the keypad, raising the phone to his ear, but keeping his eyes locked on Spider-Man.

“ _Nine-one-one operator, what is your emergency?”_ comes a deep female voice from the other end.

“Spider-Man’s dead,” he hears himself blurting out. “And I, uh… I wasn’t sure who to call.”

A long pause from the other end. Finally, the woman speaks again. “ _Are you in any danger? Can you give me a location?”_

“No, no, I’m fine,” he replies, forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the man on the ground and leaning back against the stairs. “I’m right outside the Daily Bugle headquarters on 39th Street and Second Avenue.”

_“Okay, sir, I’m sending some people over right now, just remain calm.”_

_“_ Thank you,” he says numbly, before hanging up the phone.

 _Jameson next,_ he thinks, not entirely sure how his boss is going to react to the news. Jameson had practically been made famous for his controversial opinions regarding the web-slinger, but surely having his corpse seemingly _delivered_ to his offices’ doorstep wouldn’t make him happy _._ Jameson might be tough, but he’s no monster.

He answers after three rings with a gruff, _“What do you want, Pierce?”_

“Um, sir? There’s been a slight…er, development,” Dominic begins, wincing at his lack of articulation.

_“Development? Whaddya mean ‘development’?”_

Dominic clears his throat before responding. “Spider-Man is dead, sir. He’s at the Bugle. I called 911, but I figured I better call you too.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

 _“Well, you figured right for once,”_ the voice grumbles after a moment. _“I’ll be there in five minutes.”_

Jameson is the one to hang up the call.

Dominic sighs, sliding his phone back into his pocket. He can hear the faint wailing of sirens, but it’s hard to tell if they’re headed towards him or not. There are always sirens headed _somewhere_ in New York, after all.

He glances once more at the vacant eyes of the dead hero before reaching over, fingers trembling, and permanently shutting away the strikingly blue irises.  

He leans forward, resting a forearm across his knees. The other hand picks absently at bits of loose concrete on the sidewalk.

 _He’s so... young,_ Dominic finds himself thinking. _He barely looks older than me. He’s been Spider-Man for what, 10... 11, years now? He must’ve been just a kid when he started._ The thought makes him feel vaguely ill. Nearly every day for almost as long as Dominic could remember, Spider-Man had put on the mask that so many people had grown to love, and risked his life for the city. Millions of complete _strangers_ , yet he had done everything for them. Seeing him now, vulnerable, _dead,_ feels… wrong. Spider-Man had never seemed vulnerable before.

He’s startled out of his thoughts by the sound of a car door slamming across the street in front of him. It’s Jameson, ever-punctual, striding towards Dominic with his trademark scowl plastered across his face.

“This better not be a joke, Pierce, or I’m gonna--” He stops mid-sentence, his eyes widening as he catches sight of the man on the ground for the first time.

“It’s… it’s…” he stammers, dropping to his knees beside the body.

Dominic raises an eyebrow. “Do you know him?”

“Of course I know him. You know him too,” Jameson grumbles as he scans the corpse, paling slightly as he takes in the damage. “It’s _Peter.”_ The name is barely audible, an uncharacteristic whisper slipping from Jameson’s mouth.

Peter.

_Peter._

Recognition blooms inside Dominic, and he finally realizes why the man had looked so familiar at first. Of _course!_ Peter the photographer. The same Peter who had dropped by every other weekend with his signature photos of Spider-Man, joked around with the interns, and left with a friendly smile and wave. Dominic had only met him once or twice, having worked at the Bugle for less than a month, but he had seemed like such a genuinely nice guy. He’d had this way of making everyone in the room feel at ease.

And now he’s gone. Dead. Evidently crushed to death like an empty soda can.

A flash of anger rushes through Dominic’s mind as he stares at Peter’s lifeless body. It’s not fair. Not a single part of this whole situation is even _close_ to being fair.

A deep sniff drags his attention upward, and Dominic glances up to see faint tear tracks illuminated on Jameson’s face by the nearby streetlamps. The man notices Dominic’s attention and quickly wipes a hand across his face, coughing roughly into a fist.

“Yeah, well… I never liked him anyway,” Jameson says with an obviously false gruffness. The two men sit in silence, listening to the distant sirens, each trying their hardest not to look at the familiar form lying between them.

 

____

 

They’re still sitting quietly on the stairs when the hearse and police cars pull up, red-blue lights illuminating the red-blue form on the ground between them. Officers step out of the cruisers and start taping off the area, turning away any bystanders drawn by the commotion.

The forensics are quick to do their job, snapping pictures, removing the body from the scene, cleaning up any remaining blood stains, and asking questions while jotting down notes on a clipboard. Jameson answers most of the questions since he had known Peter longer and better than Dominic had ever had the chance to. When the coroner is satisfied with the information received, he thanks them, and he and the others return to the vehicles. A police officer offers to drive Dominic home, but he politely declines.

No more than five minutes later, the cars are all gone, taking with them every trace that Spider-Man had ever been there, apart from a faint crimson stain on the ground beneath the first step.

Jameson sighs, a light puff of air cutting through the dark night.

‘Well... that’s that, I guess,” he says, his voice lacking its usual undertone of anger. He sounds mournful and defeated, words that Dominic never would have thought could be used to describe the harsh editor-in-chief.

“Yeah,” Dominic agrees uncomfortably. “Guess I’d better be headed home.”

“Me too. Goodnight, Pierce.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Jameson.”

With that, the two men go their separate ways, Jameson returning to his car, and Dominic shuffling dejectedly in the direction of the subway.

 

_____

 

The emptiness of his apartment feels unbearable after what he had just experienced. Dominic wonders briefly if he should call his girlfriend, just to have someone there with him. He opts to let her be as he notes the time on the clock. Almost 11 pm. Hardly more than an hour had passed since he had found the body, which doesn’t seem right to him. It felt like he’d been sitting on the cold steps, staring at Peter Parker’s body and waiting for the police to come for _hours._

Still feeling uncomfortable with the prospect of being alone, Dominic switches on the TV, for no reason other than to have some background noise as he prepares to settle down for the night.

He’s in the middle of brushing his teeth when the report shifts from a rundown of the upcoming weather to… something else.

“ _We interrupt this broadcast for a special report,”_ the woman on the television is saying. “ _Sad news tonight. The hero known as Spider-Man has died, after injuries related to another powerful earthquake in Brooklyn.”_

Dominic’s head snaps up, foamy toothpaste dripping down his chin and into the sink below. He quickly rinses, spits, and returns to the living room just in time to catch the rest of the report.

“ _Multiple sources are confirming that Peter Parker, a 26-year-old grad student, and part-time photographer, operated as Spider-Man for at least a decade, saving by some counts thousands of lives around the world. With these tragic seismic events on the rise, one can only wonder, is there anyone who can keep New York safe?”_

Dominic changes the channel, no longer eager to hear the rest of the report. He’s unsurprised to find a similar report on every other news channel he flips to.

 

“ _Spider-Man, revealed to be 26-year-old Peter Parker from Queens, was found dead earlier this evening--”_

 

_“Spider-Man dedicated his life to saving the lives of strangers. He will be sorely missed.”_

 

_“Peter Parker, more commonly known as Spider-Man, was found dead earlier tonight outside of The Daily Bugle headquarters, where he had reportedly worked as a photographer for much of his life.”_

 

_“He is survived by his wife, Mary Jane, and his aunt, May Parker.”_

 

_“Our hero Spider-Man is gone.”_

 

Unwilling to hear anymore, Dominic clicks the TV off, filling the apartment with silence once again. He stands motionless in front of the dark screen for a while, television remote clutched tightly in one hand, toothbrush in the other.

An earthquake, they had said. No earthquake was precise enough to cause the damage Dominic had seen, not to mention the fact that earthquakes weren’t typically known for dumping their victim’s corpses on the steps of the building where they had worked.

No. He knows as well as anyone that Spider-Man had been murdered. Someone had somehow found it within themselves to look the 26-year-old kid in the eye and _brutally_ end his life. Dominic finds his grip on his toothbrush slowly tightening in anger.

His eyelids are beginning to sag from exhaustion; he had had a rather trying night after all. He had expected to walk home, as usual, maybe stopping for a quick bite to eat along the way and to be in bed by 10. Admittedly, sometimes life can be unpredictable.

He returns his toothbrush to the bathroom before crawling into his bed, which seems unusually enticing after his unforgettable experience.

Before he drifts off, he remembers Peter’s face. Not the bruised, too-pale face from the front steps of the Bugle. No, he pictures the glowing face of the young man that had been positively delighted to welcome Dominic to the Daily Bugle. Dominic had been so worried about the new internship, concerned that no one would like him or even give his presence any notice. Peter had made him feel accepted right off the bat. He’d been a good guy, with and without the mask.

Dominic’s eyelids sluggishly drift closed, finally granting him rest after the rather taxing ordeal.

Maybe Peter had wanted that too. After a decade of being Spider-Man, surely he would have been pretty worn-out. It’s not the _happiest_ thought, but Dominic allows himself to believe that Peter Parker-- and therefore Spider-Man-- is finally enjoying a well-deserved rest for the first time in over ten years.

Fatigue overcomes Dominic and he drifts off, his last thought being the hope that wherever Peter is now, he’s being treated as a hero.

 

_____

 

A few blocks away, John Jonah Jameson lays in bed, eyes glued to the ceiling, unable to fall asleep.

_It was Parker._

_All along it had been him._

_Peter Parker._

_Of course it had to have been him._

Jameson had never been one to conceal his opinion regarding the masked hero. His newspaper had always been well-known for its controversial stance on Spider-Man, frequently calling him a monster, a menace, a reckless vigilante. All those feelings had melted away the moment his eyes had landed on the lifeless face of the boy he had almost begun to esteem as a son. He might have hated Spider-Man, but hecould  _never_ have hated Peter Parker.

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to force the image of the kid’s broken body out of his mind. Even without knowing that it had been Peter, he’d never have wished that kind of death on anyone, even Spider-Man.

He had paid a visit to Mary Jane immediately after leaving the Bugle, of course. Jameson could scarcely bear the thought of her hearing the news from whatever unlucky officers had been tasked with informing Spider-Man’s wife that her husband had been killed. No, he had felt obligated to be the first one to tell her.

She’d taken the news surprisingly well from him, all things considered.

Jameson turns over in bed, clutching at the thin cotton sheets like they’re a lifeline, hoping beyond hope that _wherever_ he is now, Peter is being treated like the hero he is. Like the hero he had always been.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "May, more than any other month of the year, wants us to feel most alive."  
> -Fennel Hudson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in the hospital with a minor spine injury right now and my mom brought me my laptop today, so... I've decided to add more chapters to this fic! I really like the idea of exploring some of the lesser mentioned characters' reactions to Peter's death, so while I'm stuck here for the next week I might as well be writing about something I'm interested in :)
> 
> **Also just a reminder that I'm on a loT of pain meds right now so if this doesn't make any sense it's not my fault wink wink**

***

The cops have already come and gone by the time MJ calls. Two uncomfortable officers, each with their hat in hand and eyes on the floor, carefully delivering the statement they had come to make. 

“Mrs. Parker?” one of them had said. “We have some unfortunate news.” 

May had already known what they were going to say from the moment she had opened the door. She’d been through this once before when Ben had been killed, but that didn’t make it any easier for her. In the end, she’d taken the news as calmly as she could manage, thanked the officers for coming by, and escorted them out. She was still processing their words as the lock on the door had clicked into place.

Then MJ’s call comes and suddenly it’s real, her tearful voice confirming everything May had been told by the cops. Without a second thought, May snags her coat and keys from the kitchen counter, determined to be there for the clearly distraught woman. 

She arrives at the small Queens apartment in no less than 10 minutes and finds herself enveloped in a colossal hug before she can even reach the front door. Mary Jane’s shoulders heave with pained sobs, her ginger curls tangling with May’s fingers as she gently runs her hand through the younger woman’s hair. 

“Shhh…It’s okay.” May reassures her quietly, half attempting to comfort the weeping woman in her arms, half attempting to convince  _ herself _ that everything is fine. “It’s okay.”

MJ sniffs deeply and pulls out of the hug. “The cops are still here,” she mumbles tiredly, rubbing her eyes with one hand. “I asked if they could take us to see him if that’s alright with you. I just…” She pauses to take a shaky breath. “I just want to be absolutely sure it was him and not some copycat.”

Her tone makes it clear to May that she doesn’t truly expect it to be anyone besides Peter. Still, she takes MJ’s hands in her own, squeezing them gently. “Of course we can go,” she replies, smiling sadly. 

The pair turn and walk back towards the porch where the two police officers are waiting somewhat awkwardly. One of them, a lanky man with dark hair and tired eyes, clears his throat as the two women approach. “If you still want us to drive you to the mortuary, we’d be more than willing, Mrs. Parker.”

“Yes, please,” MJ and May reply simultaneously. May glances at MJ, realizing a little too late that she was not the Mrs. Parker they had been addressing. 

The cops lead the way from the porch to where their squad car is parked on the curb in front of the apartment. The Parker women allow themselves to be guided into the backseat of the cruiser where they quietly sit hand-in-hand for the duration of the drive. Along the way, the two men take the time to introduce themselves to May as Officer Clancy and Officer Beckham. They remind her that if she needs anything during “this difficult time” that she shouldn’t hesitate to reach out to either them. May thanks them politely, but makes no effort to keep a conversation going.

When the car finally pulls into the parking lot of their destination, the hand in May’s abruptly tightens its grip.

“MJ?” May asks, concerned. “Are you alright?”

As MJ turns to face at her, May can see that she is certainly not alright. The woman’s face is chalky and her breathing has grown irregular, shaky inhales followed by strained, sputtering exhales. Her wide eyes flit around the backseat of the car as if searching for something. The hand in May’s is clammy and trembling. 

“Mrs. Parker?” One of the men— Officer Clancy, May remembers — has turned around in his seat to look back at the duo.

“I need a minute,” MJ gasps. “Can we not go in quite yet? I just… I just need a minute.”

“Of course, take all the time you need. Just breathe, okay?” the man says soothingly. “Listen to me, okay? Breathe in…. And breathe out.  It’s going to be alright, Mrs. Parker, just breathe in…. and breath out.”

After several minutes, the man finally manages to calm MJ down. She takes one last deep breath before hardening her gaze and turning to May. “I’m ready.” Her voice sounds determined, but May knows the woman well enough to recognize when she’s putting up a shield of false bravery. Nevertheless, the two exit the car as their doors are opened for them.

May wraps her arm around MJ’s shoulders, holding her close as they follow the policemen through the doors. “Remember, MJ,” she whispers into her ear as they shuffle together through the brightly lit hallway. “I’m going to be right here with you no matter what.” MJ nods, but says nothing, her eyes glued to the walkway ahead of them. 

They stop in front of a heavy wooden door adorned with a bronze plaque, proclaiming it to be the office of  _ Robert L. Hoover, Chief Coroner.  _ Officer Beckham raps his knuckles against the door, and after a moment, a stout man with unruly red hair opens the door. 

“Ah, you must be the Parkers,” the man says grimly upon taking in the ladies at the back of the four-person crowd. “I was told you’d probably be coming by tonight or tomorrow.” He trudges back to his desk in order to collect a large key ring from the mahogany tabletop. “Well,” he sighs, gesturing for them to follow him down another hall. “No use prolonging the inevitable.”

MJ and May share a glance before following the three men down the hall.

The room they end up in is chilly and not as brightly lit as the rest of the facility. The coroner stops the group in front of a wall lined with metal cabinets, and May finds herself dismissing unpleasant memories of being brought to see Ben in a very similar room not ten years prior. 

The coroner clasps his hands together in front of him and absently rubs his thumbs together. “Our pathologist hasn’t been able to perform an official autopsy yet, since we just had him brought in tonight, so we’re not one hundred percent certain about anything right now,” he begins, as he selects one of the cabinets and gets to work unlocking it. “We believe that the actual cause of death was likely massive blunt force trauma to the chest, although he was also pretty badly burned and bruised in several places.”

With every word, May can feel MJ’s hardened determination begin to leak away. May understands the feeling. Hearing that Peter had died was hard enough for her; hearing  _ how  _ he’d died was encroaching on unbearable. She finds herself hoping that the man will talk faster, or better yet, stop talking altogether, so that she and MJ and confirm their fears and get out as soon as possible.

Finally, the lock on the large drawer clicks and the coroner slides out the tray, pulling back the sheet to reveal the man underneath, and...

It’s not him. It can’t be.

May’s Peter had never looked so pale, so  _ utterly _ lifeless. The familiar, ever-present crinkles etched into the corners of his eyes are there, but no smile to match. His eyes are closed, but May gets the feeling that they hadn’t been when he’d been found, that someone had gazed into her boy’s beautiful blue eyes before making the decision to close them forever. She might have been able to convince herself that Peter is simply asleep, were it not for all of the horrible injuries. 

MJ is sobbing again, leaning over the body and running her fingers through his matted blonde hair. “No, no, no,” she gasps between sobs. “Peter, what did they do to you?”

May steps up to MJ and wraps her arms around the crying woman, who turns and buries her face into May’s shoulder. “He just wanted to help people,” MJ hiccups through her tears. “Who would do this?” 

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” May whispers. For the first time that night, tears begin to well up in May’s eyes.  _ First Ben, now this,  _ she can’t help but think. She tightens her hold on MJ, as if letting go would allow for something awful to happen to her too. 

They stand there for a while, arms around each other, faces buried in each others’ shoulder. After the crying has more or less subsided, May lifts her eyes so she’s gazing up at the coroner.  “Do you have any way to tell who, or what, exactly killed him?”

The man shifts uncomfortably under her stare and clears his throat before answering. “Well, we could swab him for DNA, but, uh… I’m not sure how effective that would be for him. I’m sure you know better than anyone that he fought a  _ lot _ of people in that suit. Our best bet would probably be to have someone pull the security tapes from wherever he was found.”

May nods. She hadn’t really expected a solid answer, but still. Any hope for catching whoever had done…  _ that _ to her nephew was better than no hope at all. 

May glances down at her watch, which proclaims that it’s nearly one in the morning. She sighs, tugging MJ’s arms from around her neck. “We’d better head home, MJ. It’s getting late.” MJ nods, turning to plant one final kiss on Peter’s forehead before allowing May and the others to lead her from the room. 

She falls asleep against May’s shoulder on the way home. 

May gazes out the window as they drive. Everywhere she looks, there are billboards and shop windows all displaying the exact same thing. It’s bittersweet to see her beloved nephew’s face shining out from every street corner. He looks happy and so  _ alive _ in all of the pictures, and it makes May’s heart ache. In the front seat, Beckham flips on the radio, whether to ward off the tangible silence or to actually hear the news, May isn’t sure. Unsurprisingly, the first thing that plays is the same broadcast that appears to be playing repeatedly on every TV and radio in the city. 

_ “—has died, after injuries related to another powerful earthquake in Brooklyn. Multiple sources are confirming that Peter Parker, a 26-year-old grad student and part-time photographer, operated as Spider-Man for at least a dec _ —”

“I’m so sorry,” Beckham says embarrassedly as he flips off the radio. “I didn’t even think that—”

“It’s okay,” May interrupts. “I want to hear it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

The radio turns back on, starting a few seconds ahead of where it had been cut off.

_ “ _ — _ ousands of lives around the world. With these tragic seismic events on the rise, one can only wonder, is there anyone who can keep New York safe?” _

The broadcast ends and starts over at the beginning again. It plays through a few more times before Officer Clancy switches off the radio. “I think that’s enough of that,” is all he says.

After a moment of silence, a question pops into May’s mind. “Why do you suppose they said on the report that it was an earthquake that killed him? There’s no way anyone actually believes that.”

“You’d be surprised, Mrs. Parker,” Clancy begins. “And and as for  _ why, _ well, I have buddies that work for 10NY and NNC, and they told me that if people were to hear that the guy everyone looked up to for so long had been murdered… let’s just say they probably wouldn’t have taken it as well as they are hearing that he’d died saving people, you know? The whole ‘better to remember him as he was’ kind of thing.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” May agrees. Now that she’s thinking about it, she probably would’ve been happier not knowing the truth herself. If the police had come to her door and said, “Mrs. Parker, your nephew was found dead earlier this evening. We have reason to believe that he had been saving people that had been caught up in the earthquake that occurred around 8 pm. Everyone made it out except for him. He died instantly and felt no pain,” then everything would’ve been easier. At least he’d have died doing what he loved. Helping people. 

But no, of course he didn’t get that. It was just like when Ben had died. Peter had shown up at the door, shaking and sobbing, and then the police, and they’d told her that he’d been shot. And then tonight, eleven years later, the police appear at her door to tell her that Peter,  _ her Peter,  _ had been killed too. 

They sit in silence for the rest of the ride back, and all May can do is watch her nephew’s face flicker by on the bright neon pictures that shine from every passing billboard.

They drop Mary Jane at her house first, making sure to leave both of the officers’ numbers with her. “ _ Just in case you need anything,” _ they’d said when MJ had asked why. May helps her inside and makes sure she gets herself into bed before returning to the car.

By the time they reach May’s house it’s nearly 1:45 am, definitely past her typical bedtime. She thanks the officers and they leave her with their phone numbers as well, even though the cops that had come by her house earlier had already given her theirs. 

Once inside, she pauses by Peter’s old room on her way down the hall towards her own. She gingerly pushes the door open and steps inside. And her heart drops. Everything is exactly how he’d left it. Trophies and medals from various science camps and competitions, posters, and pictures of him and his friends adorning the walls, old suit design ideas from before May had found out about him and started helping make his gear, that ratty old bedspread that she’d never had the heart to make him get rid of. Just the thought of packing up all his old things and moving them into storage as she had done with Ben… it doesn’t feel right to her. It isn’t fair. No parent should ever outlive their child, even if that child isn’t technically theirs in the first place. 

There’s a little cushioned chair in the corner of the room that May had brought in once to sit on while she helped Peter with his homework. He’d been 11 years old. They’d never gotten around to bringing it back to the room where it belonged. She crosses to the chair now, snuggling up in one of the blankets from Peter’s old bed and taking a seat. It hurts to be in the room, but it’s comforting at the same time. 

May almost convinces herself that she’s only waiting for Peter to come back from patrol, 17 years old and still  naïve enough to be able to doubt that anyone out there in the great big world would ever truly want to hurt him. 

And suddenly May is crying. Harder than she had when she’d first heard the news. Harder than she had at the mortuary. Harder even than the first time she’d found out he was Spider-Man, where she’d discovered him, bruised and bleeding on the living room floor and with half of his ribs broken like glowsticks. She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, whether to stop the steady flow of tears or to block out the sight of the room she isn’t entirely sure. 

Of course, ever since finding out that he’d been Spider-Man, she’d known this was always going to be a possibility. She’d always  _ hoped _ that he would get the chance to grow up,  have a life, change the world, before being Spider-Man caught up with him. And yet, 26 years old, still in grad school, only recently married… He hadn’t gotten the chance to do  _ half _ of what she’d hoped for him. 

And someone had killed him. That’s probably the hardest part for her. The fact that he’s dead is hard enough to take in, but remembering that he hadn’t just died helping people… it makes it infinitely worse. May feels the frown on her face continue to deepen the longer she thinks about it. 

_ I’ll find whoever did it,  _ she thinks.  _ And when I do, they’ll wish they’d never been born. _

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is welcome, but pls be nice lmao i'm sensitive


End file.
